Suddenly A Father
by Nathallya Black
Summary: A/U: A betrayal made Draco and Hermione drift apart. He sent her back to London and did not believe when she said she was innocent. He did not believe that the little Lyra was theirs. When he realises what a web of lies was carefully woven around them, will it be too late?
1. Chapter 1

This is an adaptation of a Brazilian book, keep that in mind before further reading ^.^

Disclaimer: The characters do not belong to me, nor does the original plot. They respectively, J.K's and Michelle Reid's.

Chapter 1

London. The house, ostentatious, stood in a sophisticated address, close to the Hyde Park. It was five forty-five pm, six hours after the beginning of the torment.

The tension in the beautifully decorated was palpable. People huddled together in small groups, some whispering in hushed and grave tones, others erupting in tears occasionally. Some were offering small words of comfort, while others kept to themselves, away from everything and everyone, in silence.

Hermione belonged to that last group, seated alone in a leather loveseat. Outwardly, she appeared calm, while looking at the clear carpet beneath her feet, indifferent to everything.

But the fact was that she wasn't indifferent. Each movement, each sound, made her mind throb. If she moved a muscle, her auto control, kept in such a flimsy hold, would ruin like a sand castle after the waves came crashing.

When the terrible news came, Hermione found herself in such a state of terror that it was indescribable. They tried to put her to bed. They had tried to make her take tranquilizers to spare her of the torment. They tried to keep her apart of everything.

She refused. What else could she do? How could a mother seek refuge in sleep in a moment like this?

But there was nothing more excruciating than the wait.

She had to wait for the man that was the center of that crisis, the man that would come to take control of the situation.

She had already been informed that he was on his way, but it wasn't as if it would make her feel any better. Nothing could cure her of that horror. Nothing. No one.

Therefore, there she was, eyes downcast so no one could guess her shakiness, her uneasiness, her pain, so no one would see the paleness of her skin, accentuated by the black of her shirt and stretch pants.

The sudden sound of the brakes of a car in front of the house left everyone on alert. Hermione did not move, nor did she look up.

Sounds of voices could be heard on the entrance hall, one of them standing out for it's incisive and authoritarian tone.

The steps, firm and precise, approached the closed door of the living room. Everyone inside the room turned to the door when it opened, anxious eyes craved on the man at the doorstep.

Hermione, however, kept her eyes fixed on the carpet, carefully counting the little rose buds that made the pattern of the material, in pale shades of blue and peach.

Tall, athletic, white blond hair, rigid body. White shirt, dark tie, grey suit, with the characteristic trim of silk. His face had a natural paleness, bringing out his perfect nose, his sensual mouth that was in a thin line, and his eyes. His eyes... They were the eyes of a hunter, of a predator. Grey, like steel. Cold, like his face. A man cut in marble.

He stood by the door for long and crucial seconds, keeping everyone in suspense. His cold eyes scrutinized the place until they found Hermione, seated in her lonely splendor, face down, distant.

The man approached, his movements sinuous like those of a feline, and stopped in front of her.

"Hermione?" He called, in a low tone.

She did not move. Her eyes focused weakly in his hand made leather shoes.

"Hermione!" This time, there was an authoritarian tone in his voice.

Her misty eyes slowly raised themselves, contemplating his long legs, his powerful torso. Finally, they met the grey eyes that she had wished to never see again.

How long had it been since she had saw him last? Two, almost three years? And, all this time, he had changed very little. But what would there be to change? After all, Draco Malfoy was a strong, powerful man that could give himself the luxury of having elegant houses in the bests addresses of the most important capitals throughout the world. He was born to the power, was raised in the power and used the power. When he raised his voice, people got intimidated.

He was a man that had everything: good looks, a perfect and healthy body, acute intelligence. What three years could change? His eyes, maybe? Could they have become more unmerciful?

After all, he was the unmerciful. She was the sinner.

Three years, remembered Hermione. Three years of silent resentment. Three years since he decided to abandon her. Now he had dared to come in and call her by her name, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

But it wasn't. They both knew it. And Hermione was in no condition to keep going like nothing had happened.

She diverted her gaze.

In that moment, he spoke again. The message rang loud and clear. Everyone heard it.

"Leave."

Draco kept himself beside Hermione, waiting for his order to be answered to.

The people left the room silently: both of the undercover cops; the taciturn chauffeur who was without his uniform; the nanny, who was in tears, face buried in a handkerchief; the housekeeper and her husband; the doctor that was called to take care of the nanny, but had stayed fearing for Hermione's health.

She heard the door close when the last person got out, leaving them in absolute silence.

Draco withdrew himself from her side, returning a few seconds later with a tumbler.

"Drink!" He ordered, seating by her in the loveseat.

The characteristic aroma of brandy invaded Hermione's nostrils. She shook her head, making her caramel curls bounce and then settle around her shoulders and arms.

He ignored her negative.

"Drink!" He repeated. "You are as pale as a ghost. Drink, or I'll force you to."

The words were more than a warning. That much was clear when Draco held Hermione's chin with a strong hand.

She drank, but sputtered when the liquid descended like fire through her dry throat.

"That's better." He whispered, without knowing that it was his touch and not the drink that caused her to sputter. "Drink a little more."

She obeyed, trying to protect herself from the horror she was facing. Her body still reacted in a violent way to physical contact from the one that caused her so much pain and disillusion.

He made her drink various sips until deciding that it was enough. Then Hermione raised her amber eyes, full of condemnation.

"Was it you who did this?" She asked, the words hurting her tense throat.

Draco wanted to deny it, using his eyes to ask silently how could she suspect he was capable of something so heinous.

"I hate you." She continued. "I despise the very ground you walk on. If something happens to my little girl, you beter watch out. I'll go after you to the end of the world, the highest cloud in heaven to the deepest pit in hell, even if it's the last thing I'll ever do!"

Surprisingly, he did not reply nor did he react to her words. He had never been a man that let himself be threatened.

"Tell me what happened." He asked, impertubable.

The image came back violently to Hermione's mind: the nanny dazedly and clumsyly entering the room, make up smudged, and crying desperately.

"Lyra has been kidnapped!" She had screamed, terrified. "They simply showed up out of nowhere and took her while we were in the park!"

The memory shook her out of her stupor.

"You know what happened!" She snarled, shooting daggers at him through her eyes. "She was the only humilliation of your life, Draco! Is that why you decided to kidnap and then later exterminate her?"

"I did not take your daughter." He stated, simply.

Hermione noticed, disgusted, that he did not acknowledge the child as his, or theirs. She was simply hers, only.

"Yes, you did!" She insisted, without bating an eyelid. "You know what? Your last name should not only mean bad faith, it shoud also mean revenge. I just can't understand why didn't they take me, instead of her."

"Think a little, use that big brain of yours. Luckyly, maybe you'll find your answer."

She diverted her eyes, hating his cruel indifference.

"For heaven's sake, you make sick!" She muttered, standing up and away from him. Hugging herself, she looked out of the window to the spectacle that the security had made around the house: men with dogs, guns, cell phones, alert eyess. She laughed scornfully. "What a big show! Who are you trying to fool?"

"That is to keep the press at bay." He explained in a dry tone. "Even though she was trained for this type of situation, that stupid nanny ran out screaming bloody murder, like a lunatic, throughout the park, for all of London to hear." He sighed, his first demonstration of anger. "Now the world knows the child has been taken. How can we get her back without alarm?"

"Oh, God!" Hermione covered her mouth with her hands, surrendering herself to the panic. "Why, Draco? She's only two! She did not mean any threat! Why did you take my baby?"

In the next instant, he was already by Hermione's side, holding her arms in a vice like grip.

"I'm going to tell you this for the last time, so listen carefully: I did not kidnap your daughter."

"But somebody... Somedy did." She sttutered, eyes watery. "Who else could hate her so much, to be able to do it?"

He sighed again. He could not answer because, in a way, he deserved the accusation.

"Come sit again, before you fall." He suggested.

"I don't want to sit down!" She refused, exasperatedly. "And stop touching me!" She struggled violently out of Draco's grasp. He pursed his lips, finally showing that, at last, Hermione's behaviour was starting to wear on his nerves. "Who else?" She repeated, in a whisper. "Who else would want to take my little baby away from me?"

"From you?" He asked calmly, turning his back to her. "It was from me they took the child of!"

"From you?" She repeated his question in a ironic and incredulous tone, raising an eyebrow. "Why would they do that? You rejected her!"

"But the world doesn't know it."

Hermione felt herself freezing inside. So her suspicions were founded!

"I'm a powerful man." He continued. "And power makes a lot of enemies."

She shook her head.

"No! That's a family thing, I know it is. I spoke with them on the tele...

"You spoke with them?" Draco turned around, a furious glint in his steely eyes.

"On the telephone." She completed, trying to forget the nausea she felt after the call was ended.

"When?" Draco huskily asked. "When did you get the call?"

"About an hour after they took Lyra. They said you would know what to do." A shadow fell over Hermione's amber eyes. "Then do something! For God's sake, do it, whatever it is!"

He swallowed a curse and took her arm, making her sit again on the same spot on the loveseat.

"Now listen. I need to know exactly what they said and how did they say it.

"You want to know if they were German? Yes, they were! Just like you!" She answered accusingly. "I recognized the accent and the contempt for whoever does not have the same blood!"

Draco ignored her comment.

"Man or woman?"

"Man." She muttered.

"Young, old?"

She sook her head.

"The voice was muffled, I couldn't tell."

Hermione a move to cover her trembling lips with her hands, but Draco held them.

"Did he speak your language?"

She confirmed, nodding her head.

"With a german accent. Let go of me..."

Draco ignored her request.

"And what did they say?" He insisted.

"We are... We are with your daughter." She related, word by word. "She is safe... For now. Call Malfoy. He will know what to do. We'll get in contact... Again... At seven thirty p.m." Hermione looked around, terrified. "What time is it?"

"Calm down. It's not even six yet." He whispered, trying to calm her. "Focus, please. Did you hear anything else? Some background sound, a plane, a car..."

She shook her head.

"Nothing." She freed one of her hands to cover her eyes. "My baby... My poor baby... I want her here!" She turned to Draco. "In my arms..." Then she hugged herself, like embracing the little girl. "Oh, Draco... Do something!"

"Go to your room and try to rest." He recommended. "I'll tell you if they call again."

"Will you take care of everything?"

"Isn't this why I'm here?"

It was the only reason for him to be there.

"Where were you?" She asked, suddenly curious. "When you received the news, where were you?"

"New York."

Hermione was surprised.

"New York? But it has only been six hours since..."

"I flew in a Concorde, the faster plane of the world. Do you still suspect I kidnnaped your daughter?"

Hermione raised her chin defiantly, eyes cold like ice.

"We both know what you are capable of."

"Why would I wish to do that?" He argued in a reasonable tone. "Lyra does not represent a threat."

"Oh, no?" Hermione challenged him with her eyes. "Untill you get rid of me and find a new wife, Lyra is your legitimate heiress even without ever having had her father's attention, that wasn't man enough to assume her."

The provocation went too far.

"Be careful." He warned, a dangerous glint in his eyes. "Watch your tongue around me!"

"Well then you take care to have my daughter returned to me safe and sound. Otherwise, God help you." She warned him. "I'll throw the Malfoy name in the mud!"

"What can you accuse me of? Didn't I give you and your daughter everything you could ever wish for? I gave you my home and my money, not mentioning my name!"

"Why Draco? To protect your stupid german pride!"

"What pride?" Abruptly, he raised himself to his full height and turned his back to her. "You destroyed my pride when you slept with another man!"

Hermione felt her chest tighten, in a torured compassion for the man that lived with that belief for almost three years. Simply believing that that could be true was a fatal blow to that enormous ego.

"Argh!" He waved one of his hands dismissively. "I will not argue with you anymore. I despise you. And I despise myself for giving myself go through the trouble of talking to you."

He walked decidedly to the door.

"Draco!"

He stopped, his hand on the handle.

"Yes?"

"Please... Even if you don't believe in me, Lyra did not commit any crime!"

"I know." He agreed, once again impertubable.

"Then please... Please, bring her back! Alive!"

He turned around and looked at her intently. His hard and cold grey eyes took on her long hair that reached to her waist, loosely tied with a string of black velvet. Hermione was not tall, and her simple stile of clothing only served to accentuate her slim body.

She was a delicate creature the kind that seemed more breakable than the finest crystals. Like a word said in a little more harsh tone would snap her in half. But he knew it was not true. She might be fragilized in the current sutiation, but she was far from breakable. If anything, she was destructible.

If possible, his grey eyes became even more harsher.

"The child has been kidnapped because it has my surname." He said coldly. "That being said, rest assured that I'll do everything possible and impossible to rescue her."

The door was closed, leaving Hermione fuming. He kept addressing to Lyra as 'the child', like she was a rag doll! A mere inanimated object that was stolen!

"Oh!" She burried her face in her hands, trying to keep the hurtful thougths at bay.

Her little girl, at the hands of a madman! What kind of heartless monster would take a baby girl from her mother? What made a person so cruel, so evil?

She raised her face when a dark thought crossed her mind. She knew only one person that was capable of such cruelty: Lucius Malfoy.

He was so many times worse, colder and harsher than Draco. And he hated her. Hated her because he thought she was unworthy of his precious son. If Draco considered himself omnipotent, Lucius considered himself a God.

She straightened herself. But she was still trembling. A terrible fear flooded her motherly heart.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

A tall, broad shouldered man with an unpleasant air about him stood guard outside the double doors leading to the study.

"Where's Draco?" Hermione asked with a trembling voice. "My husband, where is he?"

"Mr. Malfoy does not wish to be interrupted."

German. His accent was german. She shivered slightly and passed by him, ignoring his warning.

When she opened the door, the first thing she saw was Draco, seated in a corner of the sturdy desk. He wasn't alone. Two aurors were with him as well as Blaise Zabini, his best friend and most trusted man even if he wasn't german. In fact, Zabini projected the image of a italian Casanova even in a dire situation like the one they were in. The man, gathered around something on the desk, raised their heads when Hermione walked in.

She ignored them.

"Draco, I..." She started, approaching slowly.

A big hand turned the device on the desk off. Just then Hermione registered something that her mind did not want to hear. It was the voice of her little daughter, asking for her.

"Mummy? Mummy?"

Losing all of the little colour that was on her face, she closed her eyes, losing her balance.

"Don't touch her! Don't you dare touch her!"

She vaguely recognized Draco's arms surrouding her when he caught her before she could fall flat on her face, pressing her against his chest until he managed to ease her into an armchair. He did not let her go until he certified himself that she was comfortable. Hermione felt her heart race as her breathing became laboured and increasingly difficult.

Draco started swearing in german in a low tone. Hermione raised her trembling and cold hand to her husband's furious lips.

"Drake..." She whispered weakly without knowing why she was calling him by his nickname, just like in the past. "My little gril... That was my little girl's voice!"

Draco Malfoy slowly lowered himself in front of Hermione, and could not help but smell the slight perfume that was emanating from her hair. He closed his eyes, a tortured expression on his face.

"Shhh..." He whispered, holding her cold fingers, touching them briefly with his lips. "Hermione, she's alright. She calls for you, but not in a frightened way. Do you understand that, Engel?"

Hermione fainted. Finally, she surrendered under the pressure and collapsed on the arms of the man that was holding her. When she came to herself, she noticed that she was on her bed with a healer by her side, similling gently at her.

"I want you to take this potion, Mrs. Malfoy." He softly spoke, offering her a tiny flask with a swirling liquid of a strange colour.

Hermione made a negative motion with her head. She closed her eyes, trying to recall what had happened. She remembered having entered the study. She remembered seeing Draco in the room, along with Blaise and two aurors. She remembered approaching her husband, and then... And then the final memory came, along with nausea.

"Where's Draco?" She asked, out of breath.

"Here!" Answered a worried voice.

Hermione opened her eyes and saw him by her other side. He looked different, stripped of his usual arrogance.

"The kidnappers have called again, haven't they? They called before the deadline..." Tears started streaming down her pale face. "They let my little baby talk to you..."

"Take the potion the healer is giving you." Was all Draco answered.

She refused, shaking her head.

"I need to know what they said." She insisted.

"Only after you take your potion."

"You just put me to sleep! I don't want to sleep!"

"This is not a sleeping potion, Mrs. Malfoy." The healer said, trying to reassure her. "This is a mild Calming Draught. You won't sleep if you don't want to, but you'll be able to relax. You almost had a breakdown, Madam." He offered her the potion again. "Trust me."

"Drink the potion." Draco insisted. "If you don't, I'll hold you and let him give you an injection."

She obeyed him. Draco never made empty threats.

After checking that her blood pressure was normal, the healer left her alone with her husband.

"Now you may tell me what happened." She whispered, without opening her eyes. "I won't have another nervous breakdown."

"You did not have a nervous breakdown. Just fainted."

"Saw this happening before, didn't you?" She provoked.

"Yes."

"If my memory serves me well, you just left me on the floor, last time."

He dragged his chair closer to the bed. Hermione knew that the movement was just to help him keep the unwanted memory away.

That first incident happened in another place, another country, another reality, another world. And he had simply disappeared, returning only when he learned about Lyra's kidnapping.

"When did they call?" She asked.

"A little after I left you."

"What did they say?"

"Don't worry. It is clear they are talking about business."

"What kind of business?" Hermione kept asking, surpring herself with the calm aura she was emanating. "Money? Blood status?"

He smirked, and ignored her second guess.

"It is obvious that they want money, something I have in abundance."

"It's a lie! They don't want your money!"

Draco frowned.

"And how did you reach that conclusion?"

"Well, they are pureblooded germans, just like you! Had you told me that they took Lyra by vengeance, I would believe it!"

"Are you perchance suspecting me?" He asked coldly, eyes flashing dangerously.

"Not you, your father."

"Leave my father out of this!" He replied furiously.

"I wish I could." She answered. "But I can't. You defied him when you married me and you are still defying him, refusing to divorce me to find another wife. How much time do you think he would be willing to ignore this situation without making any moves?"

"You think that my father would take revenge by kidnapping your daughter?"

A sarcastic glint shone in Hermione's eyes.

"Well, he's already managed something: to make you come here and face the problem you should have faced three years ago."

He laughed bitterly.

"If that is my fathers tactics, the he made a grave mistake in his judgement. I protect what's mine." He narrowed his predator's eyes. "And even though I have no intention of ever touching you again, I'll make sure that no other man has this privillege."

His words made her tremble inside.

"Is that your personal revenge?"

Draco did not even bother denying it.

"Suit yourself."

Hermione covered her pained eyes with a shaking hand.

"Then you'd better tell this to your father." She said, her voice tired.

"There's no need to. He already knows and is in no conditions to do anything about it." He stood up and put his chair were it was before. Then he turned around and looked at her sternly. "Six months ago he suffered a cardiac arrest. The sequelae left him chained to a wheelchair, his health is fragile. Can't do anything without help. How could he plan something as laborious as her kidnapping?" He leaned over the bed, intimidating and serious. "If you want to insult me, make yourself at home. But leave my father out of this, do you understand?"

"Yes." She mumbled, shaken with the news. Lucis, sick? The great, tyrannical patriarch confined to a wheelchair? "I'm sorry." She said. She did not feel for Lucius, but for Draco, who worshipped his father.

"I do not need your simpathy." He said, raising his body. "I just want you to hold your tongue when talking about him."

Blaise entered the room, out of breath.

"They are on the phone again!"

Draco ran to the door and Hermione tried to follow him, groggy.

"Don't! Hold her." He ordered Blaise. Then he left and closed the door hurriedly.

"I hate him!" She whispered, letting her frustration out.

"He's just thinking of you." Blaise gently reasoned with her. "Believe me, it's not pleaseant to testify an argument with this type of people."

Hermione laughed sarcastically and bitterly.

"You think I don't know that they are negotianting my daughter's life?"

Blaise could not say anything. After all, she was right.

"Fuck!" She cursed, sitting at the edge of the bed, since she could not be standing anymore. "Leave, Blaise. I won't do anything stupid."

He sighed sadly, but did not leave.

"I know I'm not one of the best companies right now," She murmured gloomily. "but we were once friends, remember?"

Friends. Once, in the past, she even thought of him as her only friend in a world of enemies. At the time, she felt lonely, in that high society world that Draco had introduced her to. And she did not trust anyone around her. Blaise was the only one that she could count on when Draco wasn't around. But, when the tables turned, even the good Blaise turned his back on her.

"I do not need anyone. Just my daughter."

"Drake will get her back." He answered calmly. "But you need to trust that Draco will act as he thinks is best."

Trust... She raised her eyebrows. That old word, again.

"The kidnappers called before the deadline again, didn't they?"

He shrugged, highlighting the elegance of his expensive suit.

"They were following us." He explained. "They tracked our trip from New York to here, but they didn't think that we would travel in a Concorde. Therefore, their assumptions were wrong." He put his hands in his pockets, his expression serious. "The news left Drake completely shaken up. I've never seen him like that. Not ever since..."

Blaise stopped talking. She did not blame him. He was about to say "not ever since he found out about your betrayal".

"Draco told me that Lucius is sick." She said, trying to change the course of the conversation.

"It was horrible." Blaise confirmed. "He was lucky to be in London when everything happened. Otherwise, he would not have survived."

London? Hermione frowned. Lucius would never be caught dead in London. He always kept saying how much he despised the city, the fact that Diagon Alley and St. Mungos were there notwithstanding. In fact, the only place he liked in Britain was his manor in Wiltshire.

"He was in the hospital for two months before he was able to go back home. And Draco did not leave his side for weeks."

"Oh!" She was stunned. Draco had been so close to her home and she had not even known...

"The case was kept under wraps, of course." Blaise continued. "Since then, Draco has been controlling everything. He's doing the job of two people at the same time."

"Poor Drake..." She mocked. "And now this..."

A dangerous glint overtook Blaise's eyes.

"Do not mock him. You do not have this right. And after all, he's here, isn't he?" His italian blood was boiling in his veins, and his words sounded harsh. "He came without thinking twice about it, when the majority of the men would have turned their backs on you!"

"Would you have done it?" Asked her.

But he never answered, for in that moment, the door opened and in stepped Draco, assessing them with cold eyes.

"So?" She asked, anxious.

"Stay calm. They are still negociating. Bear in mind that they are bargaining much more then your daughter's life."

"Bargaining?" She gasped. "What the hell are you trying to bargain? Pay the ransom! Bring my daughter back!" She noticed Draco's somber look and insisted. "How much did they ask?"

"That's not up for discussion."

Hermione felt something crumble inside her chest.

"They are asking too much, aren't they?" She whispered. "They want more then you are able to raise right now..."

He smiled with a twinge of sadness.

"At least you are not accusing me of avarice." He sighed. " We have to wait"

"And then what?" She whispered defeatedly. He made a signal for Blaise to leave them. His assistant and best friend left without a word.

"We wait for them to call again with more reasonable terms." Draco answered dryly. "When did you eat for the last time?" She frowned, trying to understand his question. "Food." He pressed on. "When was the last time you ate?"

Hermione passed her hands on her silky locks.

"I can't eat."

"When?" He asked stubbornly.

"Breakfast." She freed her hair out of its confines and hugged herself, remembering how much Lyra had made her laugh during that last meal. "Oh Merlin, no!" She doubled over, tears filling her amber eyes.

"What happened?" Asked Draco warily.

"They don't know..." She hiccuped. "what she likes to eat. Lyra will feel confused, she'll start to grouch... she'll be desperate because I'm not around and..."

Draco knelt in front of Hermione.

"Do not torture yourself like that. She'll be fine. You just need to be a little optimistic."

He was right. With an effort, Hermione was able to contain the tears and moistened her dry lips a little bit.

"Did they... Did they let you hear Lyra's voice?"

Involuntarily, Draco pushed the long mahogany locks out of his wife's pale and tear stained face.

"She's well. I could hear her voice in the background, chattering."

"Did you record the conversation?" She asked hurriedly. "I want to hear..."

"No!" He raised himself abruptly and went back to a position that exuded confidence and demanded obedience.

"Why not? I need to hear my baby!"

"I understand you, but do not insist. The words that those people use in their calls are horrible."

Draco walked to the door like the conversation was finished. Then he stopped, his whole attention focused in an object upon the desk. Hermione was paralized as he looked intensely at the photos that were adorning it.

"Lyra looks a lot like you" He said, after a long time.

"Yes, she is." Was all she was able to say.

In reality, the daughter had inherited a lot from her mother. Mahogany curls, amber eyes, pale skin, but not too much pale and she looked delicate like a china doll. There was no trace of her father in her features.

"She is beautiful." He added, his voice a little rough. "You seem to love her a lot."

"Oh, Draco!" Hermione gasped, feeling her chest constrict. "You would love her too. She is..."

"She is your daughter too!" was what she was about to say. But her husband made her stop talking by looking and her coldly.

"I'm not here to hear lies. I'm here to get your daughter back. Your daughter!" He emphasized in a bitter tone. "I'm not that child's father!"

"Yes, she is yours! She is yours, because you conceived her with me! Do you think that I do not get angry with this damned suspicion that I was unfaithful? Have I ever gave you reason to believe that I was capable of something so despicable? I was shy! So shy that I blushed and sputtered every time one of your friends spoke to me!"

"Until you learned to savour your own powers over the males, isn't that right?" He counter attacked. "Powers I taught you to recognise and use!" He made a gesture of disdain. "Then you stopped blushing and sputtering. You started smiling and flirting!"

"I have never had a lover!"

"Then the man in which arms I found you was a fidget of my imagination?" He mocked.

"No." She admitted, trembling at the memory. "It was real."

"And then after I spent five weeks without touching you, even then you managed to get pregnant... A miracle!"

"You are wrong. It was four weeks. And we made love many times that night."

"And in the next day you got your period. How could you have gotten pregnant?"

Hermione sighed, defeated. She had lied about her period. She lied to punish him, because he would leave the next day. She had lied to deprive him of her body, and she was going to regret that lie every day of her life. She had even confessed to lying, but he did not believe her.

"Don't you have any witty comeback for this?" He mocked her, again.

Hermione just shook her head.

"Believe in what you want." She replied bitterly. "It does not matter anymore." She raised her empty eyes to meet his. "Once upon a time, I loved you more than I loved myself. Now, my love for Lyra is much more important than what I felt for you one day."

Draco remained impassive.

"Straighten youself up." He ordered, turning his back to her. "Then go downstairs. I'll ask the cook to make something for us to eat."


End file.
